'We must find ways of putting a price on rainforests which makes them more valuable alive than dead'

A speech by Prince Charles last night to a WWF gala dinner at Hampton Court Palace on the Prince's Rainforests Project, which aims to bring together environmentalists, scientists and leaders from the developing world in an effort to halt mass deforestation

"Work by WWF and many others has established rainforests in the public consciousness as some of the most beautiful and mysterious habitats left in the world, richer in the number of plants and animals they support than any other. But much, much more important is the contribution that rainforests, and indeed forests in general, make to maintaining our climate at a level that supports our very existence.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world's forests need to be seen for what they are – giant global utilities, providing essential public services to humanity on a vast scale. They store carbon, which is lost to the atmosphere when they burn, increasing global warming. The life they support cleans the atmosphere of pollutants and feeds it with moisture. They act as a natural thermostat, helping to regulate our climate and sustain the lives of 1.4 billion of the poorest people on this Earth. And they do these things to a degree that is all but impossible to imagine. Amazonia's forests alone - the forests which WWF wants your help to protect – provide storage for the largest body of flowing freshwater on the planet. The trees release 20 billion tonnes of it into the atmosphere every day. Half of Africa, for instance, depends on rain from the forests of the Congo. (Some scientists are now asking if Australia's devastating years of drought may be linked in some way to the loss of forests in South East Asia?) Then just take Ethiopia, which has suffered decades of famine. One hundred years ago, 35 per cent of Ethiopia was covered in trees. The figure today is barely 4 per cent.

However, as WWF knows only too well, the destruction goes on at a truly terrifying pace – out of sight and out of mind. Every year 50 million acres – an area the size of England, Wales and Scotland combined – are destroyed or degraded. And the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations International Panel on Climate Change has estimated that emissions from burning forests are responsible for around 20 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Based on that only the energy sector emits a larger share. Let me say that again. Only the energy sector releases more greenhouse gas emissions than the destruction of the rainforests.

The simple fact is that combatting deforestation is likely to be one of the quickest and most cost-effective means of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Sir Nicholas Stern's report states that expenditure of ten to fifteen billion dollars a year could reduce deforestation by half by 2030. And when you realize that figure is less than half of one per cent of the $3,500 billion the world spends on insurance every year, I think it looks like a bargain. But, having said that, we must go further – half is simply not enough…

I'm sure that this audience knows that the Kyoto Protocol does not have a mechanism to protect standing rainforests. Credits are available for afforestation and reforestation projects, but not for maintaining an old growth forest. And the European Trading Scheme excludes carbon credits for forestry in developing nations altogether, cutting them off from the potential huge benefits this emerging new market could bring. While no doubt negotiated in this way for good reasons at the time, surely we have to accept that the pressing urgency of climate change requires a response that embraces rather than excludes primary tropical forests?

Of course it is essential, as WWF and many others rightly remind us, that stopping the deforestation of the rain forests is not an alternative to rich countries reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. But, ladies and gentlemen, it isn't an either/or. First of all, none of us can afford to go on with business as usual – the problem is too grave and too urgent for that. Secondly, how can we expect developing countries and emerging economies to take action if we - who, unwittingly or not, caused the problem that is likely to affect them more than ourselves - stand by and do nothing? Some of the rainforest nations are already doing what they can, not least Brazil which is working hard to reduce deforestation and with recent success. (And, incidentally, Brazil is also a world leader in producing and using renewable energy.) But none of these countries can solve the problem of deforestation by themselves because too often it is demand from developed countries for palm oil, beef and soya which is the driver. The point is that all of us - the whole world - is in this together and that is why, together, we need to ensure that all possible measures are deployed .

I am so delighted that WWF is working in tandem with my own Rainforests Project which I am announcing today.

It seems to me that the central issue in this whole debate is how we put a true value on standing rainforests to the world community - we simply have to find ways of putting a price on them which makes them more valuable alive than dead. This is quite a challenge, to say the least. But after nearly twenty-three years of working to create partnerships between the public, private and voluntary sectors and to encourage what is now known as Corporate Social Responsibility, I have come to the conclusion – with a few carefully selected volunteers – that it is a challenge worth taking up because of the urgency of the situation.

My Rainforests Project has the support of twelve major companies, which is a most important start - because over all the years of working with such companies as President of Business in the Community, I have invariably found that the private sector has all the essential skills in developing innovative responses to big challenges. It is also my belief – and experience – that if a large number of major players in the private sector can speak with one voice it makes it much easier for the public sector and international agencies to respond positively.

We are also involving a number of experts in this field, from a variety of scientific disciplines including, of course, WWF. We will work with the private sector, governments and environmental experts to develop a range of practical solutions that can start to be implemented within the next eighteen months. This is important, as it is during this timescale that the G8 and UN will be establishing priorities in the run-up to the renegotiation of the Kyoto Protocol.

The task is to review, develop and propose practical mechanisms, including possible legislative and market solutions and other ideas that acknowledge the true value of carbon and the eco-system services provided by the world's remaining forests. These solutions need to provide credible incentives to rainforest nations, down to the farmers on the ground, and must "out-compete" the drivers of rainforest destruction. It is self-evident that for any solution to be effective we have to find the means to address critical issues such as governance, equity, transparency and credibility.

We recognize, of course, that a huge amount of work is already underway, not least by WWF and its partners, and it is not the intention of my Project to duplicate this. We have no intention of re-inventing the wheel and we know that we have no monopoly of wisdom. But we want to use every means of identifying the winners from the myriad of proposed solutions and then find ways of implementing those winning solutions practically, equitably and above all quickly.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am under no illusions about the difficulty of the task ahead – but if nothing is ventured, nothing is gained. However, as I have said, it must surely be the ethical duty of wealthy nations, which have created the problem of climate change, to find equitable solutions. That means working with developing nations (which incidentally, will suffer most and soonest from climate change) to find ingenious, innovative ways of paying the appropriate price for the ecosystem services provided by the world's remaining great forests. But I am afraid we need to do this very fast indeed. Climate change means that their survival and ours is surely now more closely linked than ever before.

Perhaps it is appropriate today, St. Crispian's Day, to wonder if we can indeed "stiffen the sinews and conjure up the blood" in time? WWF has already stepped into the breach and each and every one of us must stand with them and do what they can. Success would literally transform the situation for our children and grandchildren and for every species on the planet. Ladies and gentlemen we must not, and cannot, fail."